Today I visited Google to talk about web spam. I had never been on the Google campus so although I was busy I did make a point to note many details.
Just about every meeting room I saw was video enabled. The spam summit met in a medium-sized room with array microphones hanging from the ceiling tiles, three video cameras in the back of the room, and one video camera in the front of the room for crowd shots. Smaller meeting rooms had phones with eye-level cameras.
Lunch was really good. I had a chicken breast pesto panini with roasted peppers, fruit, and a real, fresh-made rice krispies treat. The kitchen was well stocked with all sorts of drinks. They had Smart Water, at least 5 types of root beer, bottled Frappuccinos, smoothies, and Coke in a bottle.
I took some shots of the Google master plan. There is a long set of whiteboards next to the entrance to one of the Google buildings. The master plan is like a wiki: there is an eraser and a set of pens at the end of the board for people to edit and contribute to the writing on the wall. I liked all the checkmarks next to the master plan accomplishments such as “Hire Vint Cerf.”
Thanks Google for hosting everyone for the day and providing geek sustenance of WiFi, power strips, food, and even clothes.